GREEDY SCABS GO OFF THE RAILS

I ONCE had acquaintances who became strangers the second they spent their wages on the following: public school fees, a personalised number plate, a Phil Collins album or shares in our privatised public utilities.

I once had acquaintances who became strangers the second they spent their wages on the following: public school fees, a personalised number plate, a Phil Collins album or shares in our privatised public utilities.

As despicable as the first three crimes were, nothing quite compared with the loathing I held for those who took out loans to buy the nation's silver on the cheap, then flogged it to big business, all for a new conservatory.

In my eyes, lapping up the Thatcherite dream at the expense of those who couldn't or wouldn't, made them the worst form of scab and the lowest form of Judas.

So the news that a bankrupt Railtrack is being returned to public ownership and its shareholders are demanding compensation will have me dancing in the sidings outside Crewe station the next time I am delayed there.

I have sympathy for those Railtrack workers paid in shares for their hard graft but, for those who willingly profited from a nation's misery by buying into this obscene company, I have nothing but contempt and laughter.

Look at the facts, Mr Small Shareholder. Five years ago John Major rushed through this privatisation because he knew it was dangerous, ill thought out and immoral, and would be sunk when Labour took power.

Yet you bought into it because a glossy brochure offered you big returns from a monopoly in a booming business, with acres of land to sell off and a never-ending flow of subsidies from taxpayers. In other words, a no-lose bet.

Did you care about whose hands the railways would fall into? People who would raise their dividends a week after a fatal disaster caused by the scandalous state of their rails. Who, on the day they were given a #1.5billion bail-out package, would hand #150million to shareholders. People such as Gerald Corbett, who would walk away with a #1.6million pay-off after overseeing the worst-run, least-safe railway system since the steam engine was invented.

Didn't you realise that because the Tories had been starving the railways of investment, a price would eventually be paid in lives and passenger misery? No. Because you are greedy and blind. And you deserve your misery today.

Face facts. You tried to get something for nothing and now you are playing the victim. Well, it doesn't become you.

Two years after you bought your #3.80 shares they rose to #17.18p. But how many taxpayers demanded that you share the big profit with the Treasury, to finance a railway system in tatters?

None of us. Because we know how the stock market works. It's a glorified bookies. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. It's just that you thought you would never lose because the taxpayer had an obligation to keep your betting account in profit.

Well, your nag just went lame, pal.

But don't worry, I'm sure another privatisation will come riding over the horizon soon and you'll try to take us for a ride again.